TestOut Launches New Ethical Hacker Pro Course, Credential

Near the beginning of the pioneering 1992 cyber-thriller Sneakers, Robert Redford's proto-penetration tester collects payment for a recently completed consultation with a bank. The secretary who prepares his paycheck is curious: "So people hire you to break into their places to make sure that no one can break into their places?"

Redford's shaggy, down-at-the-heels protection professional shrugs his casual assent. "It's a living," he says. Roughly three decades down the road, the bank secretary's apologetic reply — "Not a very good one" — is more or less officially obsolete. In 2019, pentration testing, also known as ethical (or "white hat") hacking, pays great.

That's one reason for the recent explosion of interest in the ethical hacking sector of the cybersecurity galaxy. CompTIA's PenTest+ credential debuted last summer, and now training and certification provider TestOut is rolling out Ethical Hacker Pro, a training course that aligns with EC-Council popular Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) credential.

Like all TestOut courses, Ethical Hacker Pro is delivered online and runs on LabSim, TestOut's proprietary education platform most distinguished by its highly realistic simulations. The simulations let learners play around with "real" equipment and practice their skills without endangering actual physical (or virtual) computing environments.

In addition to its 66 simulation labs, Ethical Hacker Pro also incorporates video lessons (88 of those), text lessons (96), demonstrations (77), review quizzes (44), and even includes two full-length certification practice exams with unlimited retakes.

Salary aggregator PayScale reports an average annual salary of $81,980 for penetration testers, so there's an economic incentive for IT newcomers and career switchers who have an interest in ethical hacking. There's also an abundance of employment opportunities, with more being created every day.

What's more, as with all cybersecurity professions, the ethical hacking and penetration testing niche has considerably more demand for skilled professionals than supply of skilled professionals. If you have the applicable skills and knowledge, then you're like to find an abundance of employment opportunities.

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks interest in professions and job skills, predicts that market for "information security analysts" (including ethical hackers and penetration testers) just in the United States will expand by 28 percent from 2016 to 2026. That's rated "much faster than average" growth

Following its customary approach, TestOut also has an accompanying Ethical Hacker Pro certification in the works, though that element of the EHP package still has a TBD in the release date column. Until further notice, Ethical Hacker Pro is mostly a top-notch means of preparing for CEH certification.